Tough Cookie gbcm-9 Page 28

  “Where is it?” demanded a husky voice close to my ear.

  The tight duct tape mangled any response I could make. Suddenly, without warning, the cold, dense darkness lifted; a door beside me opened. Far above, a tiny fluorescent light made my eyes ache. I moaned. Strong hands hitched under my armpits and roughly hauled me out of the dark space. I struggled to get to my knees; my hands were taped together. I was in the bistro kitchen. Out the window, the sky was black. It was late at night. The lodge would be deserted.

  Out of nowhere, a hand slapped me hard across the face. I reeled. It was the kind of hit I used to take from John Richard. One hand pulled my hair hard to tilt my head back, while another hand yanked the duct tape off so roughly I knew my cheeks were bleeding.

  I blew a mouthful of vomit all over Jack Gilkey. He cried out and swung at me again. I dodged—one thing I’d learned in my years with The Jerk.

  His glossy dark brown hair was loose and wild, his handsome face menacing, gray with shadow. He grabbed me in a choke-hold around the neck. His mouth brushed my ear. “Where’s the tape, bitch?”

  My brain thumped and throbbed. The building seemed to echo the vibrations in my head. “The videotape,” Jack snarled.

  “If I tell you,” I managed to say, “will you let me go?”

  In answer, he tightened his grip around my throat and shook me hard. Black spots danced in front of my eyes. I made a squeaking, submissive sound.

  “Is it here with you? In this building?”

  “Yes,” I said, when he shook me again. Think. “Yes, yes, let me take you to it.”

  “No.”

  “It’ll take you hours to find it. Maybe more.”

  He didn’t reply. Panic gripped my gut. Then he said, “Get up,” harshly, with just a shade of doubt. In this I took comfort. Apparently, Chef Well-Organized didn’t have a plan to cover this exigency. Think. How could I get away from him? The agony in my brain made mental work impossible.

  “Please undo my hands,” I whispered. I could feel blood trickling down my cheek. “I’ll fall if I can’t get balanced.”

  “No way,” he snapped. Then he lifted his flannel shirt, revealing a flat stomach—and a small pistol. He pulled the gun out of his waistband. “Don’t move unless I tell you to, don’t fall, don’t run, don’t yell. If you do, I’ll kill your son at your house in Aspen Meadow, once I lure your husband out of the house. You understand?”

  “Yes,” I said angrily, still trying to think. On my feet, I shuffled through the long, shadowy kitchen. Why had the TV people left without checking on me? They must have figured I’d gone down on the gondola. I should have kept somebody with me. Why hadn’t I paid more attention to Tom’s warnings? Hindsight. “What are you going to do with me?”

  “Easy. You’re going to die hitting a tree. You hiked out of the bistro, got confused, and bam. We’ll get more snow by morning, nobody will ever know it wasn’t an accident. Move.”

  I shambled groggily toward the hall that led to the storage-area stairway. Think. What do cops advise in a situation like this? Talk to the criminal. Use his name.

  “Jack,” I begged, “Eileen’s my friend. I was just trying to help her—”

  “Yeah, sure,” he said, prodding the gun painfully into my back to push me forward. “I knew you were looking for something, and guessed it had to do with Nate because today you brought Rorry here. I quizzed Magill, found out about the camera, and figured out what you were doing.” His voice deepened. “You’re not on Eileen’s side. You’re on the cops’ side, that’s why you came here in the first place. To set me up, figure out Portman’s scheme. You’re not going to steal Eileen from me, trying to prove to her I killed Fiona.”

  Reggie Dawson’s call echoed in my brain: Was your involvement with Portman another attempt on your part to crack crimes in Furman County?

  “But you did, didn’t you? You killed Fiona. That’s what’s on the tape. How’d you kill Doug Portman? I thought you were prepping for lunch on Friday—”

  He laughed and shoved me. “You give your staff a ton of prep, they don’t notice whether you’re there or not.”

  “Jack, were you the one who hit my van on the interstate—”

  He opened the door to the storage area. He didn’t need to answer; of course he’d tried to get rid of me. He just hadn’t been successful the first time. “Get down those stairs,” he commanded.

  “Jack,” I said softly, “did Eileen know you bribed Portman so you could be paroled early?”

  “She knew and she didn’t know.” He announced it triumphantly. “I needed ten thousand a month for six months, but she never asked what for.” He gave me a shove. “Alimony?” Another shove. “Child support?” Shove. “Surely not bribery, Jack?” He laughed sourly. “Don’t ask, don’t tell.”

  We’d reached the first landing. The foul smell of trash rose up to greet us. “Please, Jack,” I begged. “Please stop, I have to rest.” I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes. “So, you framed Barton Reed? Your old prison chum? You knew he had cancer, knew he’d had the Duragesic, knew he hated Portman?”

  Jack shrugged. He was so marvelously good-looking, it was hard to believe he was so evil. “Portman said he sniffed an investigation coming. He was skipping out. What if they got him, with all that money I’d paid? He’d go to prison. If he did, so would I. I had to get rid of him. Making it look as if Reed had done it seemed like a good idea, since he didn’t have long to live anyway. Reed figured out what I’d done. Too bad. So he tried to get back at me, mow me down on the slopes. And he nearly killed Eileen instead. I could have killed him for that—I wasn’t married to her yet.”

  “And you needed the money from Eileen that you didn’t inherit from Fiona.”

  Jack shrugged, then poked me with his ugly little gun. “Time to get moving.”

  The pistol in his hand was a .22, accurate only at close range. Six shots, unless he had more ammunition. We were coming down to the rail that led to the canisters. I had to run away from him, hide, run out onto the slope, hope I could get away from him—something, or else I’d die, like everyone else who’d stood in Jack Gilkey’s way. I had to act.

  I tensed my leg muscles and kicked Jack’s washboard stomach with all my might. He gasped in pain and surprise and banged into the wall. Then I jab-kicked him hard in the back; he fell to his knees. I ran, clumsily, stupidly, as fast as I could. I ran for my life. Down the steps. Down the hallway. Down the rail toward the canisters. I could hear Jack stumbling down the stairs after me, cursing.

  Five canisters were lined up. Oh, when did the night crew arrive? No telling. I squeezed along the wall and tried to figure out which one to duck into. The one farthest from Jack, of course. It was poised right at the large double doors, and it was half full of food scraps and garbage. Beyond the front canister was darkness made silvery by moonlight. I clumsily climbed up the sides, jumped into the canister, and slithered down into the trash. It was all I could do to keep from gagging.

  I heard a shot. Jack was firing into the canisters. One shot, two, three. This was going to be it, I thought, and prayed for Arch and Tom. With taped hands, I used my body to burrow as deep as I could into the trash. I thought I was going to vomit again.

  Then, without warning, there was a loud kee-chunk, and the canister quivered violently. I could hear male voices in the distance. The night workers? Were they coming? I was surrounded by rotting lettuce and meat fat. Would the workers hear me if I squirmed to the top of the garbage? Could I risk calling to them, with Jack—armed—so close to the canisters? No. Clink. Ke-chunk, clink. It was the clank of metal doors being closed on trash canisters, followed by the whir of the descending gondola.

  Behind me, a loud pop was followed by a zing. Another shot. Jack was shooting at my canister. Pop-zing.

  I could hear Jack howl. Then my stinking, packed canister swung out into the darkness.

  The night air was stingingly cold. But I’d escaped Jack. I knew the gondola operators at the
top could stop the cars, but they could not reverse their motion. That could only be done by the operator at the bottom. So even if Jack knew I was in this canister—and he didn’t—he wouldn’t be able to bring me back. With a startling suddenness the canister dropped and I was swaying, out of range of Jack’s lethal little .22. Would he hurt the canister workers? I doubted it. He had only one target tonight: me.

  I wriggled between two bags of mind-numbingly smelly garbage. My head hurt, my cheeks hurt, everything hurt. The stink was inconceivable. I’d never get the smell out of my hair, I thought, and giggled insanely. The canister had holes in its walls and top. Through the holes overhead, a distant light was shining. The canister shook; an almost full moon came into view.

  Down, down the canister rolled. In my mind’s eye, I saw the gleaming container, suspended twenty feet above the ground, streaming noisily through the night.

  I had to get the tape off my hands. My only choice was to feel with my tongue around the duct tape till I came to an edge. Then I began, slowly, laboriously, with my teeth, to tug off the tape. The blood running down my face didn’t make the task any easier. But at least biting and wrenching the tape off, centimeter by centimeter, took my mind off the cold, the smell, the canister swaying and creaking in the frigid wind, high above the mountain.

  When I finally had the tape off, the canister clanked onto the track, then began to move laboriously toward the warehouse. I was on the ground, but where? How long had I been on the gondola? Ten minutes? Twenty? What had Jack been doing? I knew he kept ski equipment at the bistro. Would he try to ski down in the moonlight? How long would it take for him to get his equipment on—five, six minutes? How long to schuss down from the top? The fastest I’d ever made it was six minutes, and I was nowhere near the expert skier Jack was.

  Suddenly the canister shuddered and stopped. I clambered up through the trash to the metal door. My heart sank. Through the holes of my cage, the moonlight on the slope showed the canister was only halfway down the track to the Killdeer base. I wasn’t even in sight of the warehouse. Jack must have stopped the lift engine from the peak. Dammit.

  I peered down through the holes in the metal. The moonlight illuminated much of the mountain, including nearby woods and what looked like a catwalk or cleared path of snow. With blood pounding in my ears, I pushed on the container door. It swung open.

  I leaped out and looked all around. Had Rorry missed me and called Tom? Would he call someone to go looking for me?

  I tried to get my bearings. The cleared path was not a catwalk, I realized. It had a plastic orange fence going up one side … The construction road! If I followed it, I would get down to the Rover where I had a spare key in the wheel-well.

  I hobbled over to the road and started to run. Within seconds, my chest burned with the exertion and the cold. Did I hear something? I stopped, panting, looked up the moonlit slope, and saw the shadow of a lone skier. I turned and again ran. Could I possibly make it to the Rover before Jack caught up with me? My brain cursed my agonized legs. How far to the parking lot? Maybe fifteen minutes, if I could keep up this brutal pace. I ran and ran, and after an eternity, reached the fork that led back to the parking lot and trailhead to Elk Ridge. Wheezing, I stopped and tried to catch my breath.

  Scritch, scratch. Scritch-scratch. Very regularly, the sound came from behind me. Scritch-scratch. I glanced back. Jack, on skis, was poling swiftly along the snow-covered road, cross-country-style. He was perhaps fifty feet behind me. Damn. I moved my legs as fast as they were able to go. But I knew in my heart I’d never make it to the Rover before he closed the gap.

  And he had at least two more shots left.

  With sudden decision, I ran up the snowpacked road of the left fork, toward the construction site. On skis, Jack could go swiftly downhill; as fit and muscular as he was, he could traverse flat terrain quickly as well. But he could not go uphill on skis, unless he was Superman. I had to get to the guard’s cabin first.

  Low clouds, silvered by the moonlight, rolled across the sky. How far was the cabin, if the dirt road ran right across the valley? A half-mile? A mile? Jack would have to stop; he would have to remove his skis and boots. No one could run in that clunky footwear. You can beat him, I told myself. All you have to do is run.

  I looked over my shoulder. Scritch-scratch, scritch-scratch. Jack was gaining on me. I even thought I saw him smiling at me.

  “Goldy!” he called placatingly. “Stop! Let’s talk!”

  Yeah, sure. I ran up the track. A sudden pool of darkness swallowed me and I slowed. Tall pines loomed on the right side of the construction fence, casting black, swaying shadows on the road. Run, I ordered myself. But whatever you do, don’t fall. If you do, you’ll die.

  Behind me, the sounds of Jack removing his ski equipment were barely audible. Damn it. I couldn’t believe he would still follow me. He couldn’t be tried again for Fiona’s murder. Why not run away, rather than risk exposure? Because he’d told me he had killed Doug Portman. Because he desperately wanted Eileen’s money. The tape would show Eileen and the world that Jack had murdered his first wife to get her fortune. Eileen would dump him; he would go to prison for murdering Portman and the truck driver he’d killed on Interstate 70, when he’d been trying to nail me.

  I came to the spot in the road where it veered upward and became the old hiking trail. I did not know how far the trail went before it diverged—a high side leading to Elk Ridge, the low, level side heading through the valley. As I ran, I peered into the darkness. Was the faint light I saw the guard’s cabin far, far up the hill? Or were my eyes playing tricks?

  The wind whispered in the pines. In the moonlight, I could make out lodgepole pine branches littering the slick, snow-hard road. The branches had been blown down by the wind. I would have to be careful; stepping on them would alert Jack to my location. Had he found the road yet? How fast could he go in stocking feet? He was almost ten years younger than I was, and an athlete. Grimly, I quickened my pace.

  Minutes later, winded and puffing, I was wondering if, in the dark, I had missed the turnoff to Elk Valley. Then, as I fought down panic, it suddenly appeared on the left, and stopped me in my tracks. The left-hand split to the old hiking path was completely blocked with a gigantic pile of dead trees. The sign posted on the trees saying Warning——Avalanche Area——Do Not Enter! filled me with alarm. I couldn’t climb over the pile of trees … it was eight or nine feet high. But going through the valley was the fastest way to the expansion area—and the security guard’s cabin.

  To my consternation, I suddenly realized the construction road ran over Elk Ridge. For a moment, the wind ceased shuffling through the trees. Behind me, the faint huffing noise drew nearer. Jack was coming.

  I whispered a prayer. Then I headed up the hill.

  How far to the cabin now? Twenty minutes? I tried not to think. Just head upward. Up, up, up, no time for rest, despite the fact that my sides were screaming with pain.

  Ten minutes later, the wide, shimmering expanse where Cinda had started her fatal run in Nate’s film opened up on my left. It was startlingly beautiful, like a giant’s sugar bowl, steeply tipped, frozen hard, glittering in the moonlight. And—people will never learn—running straight across the steep, concave space were the unmistakable paths of half a dozen ski tracks. At the other end of the ski tracks, set perhaps twenty feet into the pines, the lights of the security guard’s cabin glowed yellow in the shadows. I could just make out the path of the construction road. It ran across the treed top of the ridge, then curved right down to a parking lot surrounding the cabin.

  I looked behind me. Jack was about a hundred feet back, running methodically, despite socks, despite ice and snow.

  Think. The fastest way to the cabin was straight across the steep bowl, the way the ski tracks ran. But I could never go that way. It was too dangerous, especially after all the new snow we’d had. Still, I didn’t have time to go over the forested ridge and make it to the cabin. Even if I could run st
raight on the road the whole way over, Jack would come straight across and cut me off.

  Stay in the trees, I decided. Above the bowl, but below the road. It’s the only safe way. Hug the shadows, stay off the moonlit side of the road. When you get near the cabin, call for help. I ran.

  At the top of the ridge, I dared another glance down. Jack had left the road and was running through the bowl, in the skiers’ tracks, about a hundred feet back. He knew where I was headed, and he intended to get there first. Worse, he was wearing shoes. He must have brought them in his ski jacket pockets, along with his pistol. The man was not going to be deterred.

  Well, neither was I. “Help!” I screeched as I pelted down the center of the road. A third of a mile left. “Help! Security! Come out of the cabin! Help! On the road, above you! Help!” Despite the fact that wood smoke whipped out of the metal-pipe chimney, no face came to the window, no door opened. My heart pounded madly. Dammit! Was the guy deaf?

  Jack was two-thirds of the way across the tracks. He ran as nimbly as Mercury, as Pan, as every Greek god who’d ever been known for speed. Badly winded, I continued my bumbling pace. A quarter-mile to the cabin. The wind had picked up again. There was no use yelling for someone to rescue me, because it wasn’t going to happen. I was going to die on this mountain. Just like Nate and Fiona and Doug.

  Pow. Jack, only forty feet away, both hands gripping the pistol straight in front of him, had fired at me. I tried to zigzag as I ran, but each step brought me closer to him. We were both racing down the sides of a triangle; the cabin was where we would intersect.

  Thirty feet from the cabin, totally out of breath, I hugged a tree and stopped, bent over and wheezing.

  “You’re not going to make it, Goldy,” he called fiercely as he kept advancing toward me, aiming the gun. Fifteen feet away. He was almost to the edge of the bowl. I clung helplessly to my tree. “Good-bye!” he screamed as he fired again.